Historically, Valencia have been one of Spain's most successful clubs outside the Big Two.
The club from Spain's third biggest city reached consecutive Champions League finals at the turn of the Millennium, won six La Liga titles including most recently in 2004 under Rafa Benitez as well as seven Copa del Reys, a UEFA Cup and a UEFA Cup Winners Cup.
But recent years has seen the club saddled with mounting debts, an ageing stadium and a half-built new one, managerial merry-go-rounds and underwhelming performances in La Liga.
But this season, Los Che have been flying and sit second in La Liga under manager Marcelino and scoring by the bucketload.
What has led to an upturn in fortunes? Our European football correspondent Graham Hunter explained the situation and credited Marcelino's influence, who has instilled a new nutritional and fitness regime.
"At Valencia, he is custom made for the situation but he gets support from the right people," said Graham.
"He has a brilliant team, either bought or loaned. Zaza has got his zazazoom back. Zaza looks like a striker that can take Italy to the World Cup. Ventura's not picking him but he has to. The guy who stands out is Guedes, Goncalo Guedes, on loan from Paris Saint Germain, built at Benfica. An absolute superstar at 20, one of the most exciting footballers aged 20 I have ever seen.
"And on the other side, Carlos Soler, Kondogbia on loan from Inter Milan and leading the European central midfield positions. If you tell me Matic and Kante are significantly better than him, I'd say prove it to me, take me over frame by frame where they're significantly better. It goes from there: Neto, Murillo, Gaya is playing better. There's just a stream of players who are at their very best in their careers right now. That's Marcelino but they were well bought."
He added that they are "the most exciting team to watch in Europe anywhere" even beyond Manchester City and Napoli.
Tactically, he describes the team as built around 4-4-2 defensively, with Dani Parejo and Geoffrey Kondogbia the midfield partnership, with Zaza who is "unrecognizable" from the forward who struggled at West Ham.
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